The Orlov Defence

Handlung

In April this year a long-distance call from Moscow was put through to a London barrister. In the 15 seconds before she was cut off by the KGB, a Russian woman begged the lawyer to undertake the defence of her husband. His name was Professor Yuri Orlov, held incommunicado in Lefortovo Prison on unspecified charges. John MacDonald, QC, accepted the unique brief, and this film documentary is the story of how he, a British lawyer, unfamiliar with Russian and the Russian legal system, set out nevertheless to defend a client he had never seen, and to whom the authorities would allow no access. Yuri Orlov is a Russian dissident and champion of human rights. The story of his defence is told at a time when the USSR and other signatories to the Helsinki Declaration are assembled in Belgrade, a time when the issue of human rights could be the key to East-West détente.